2018 JEEP WRANGLER — Complaint #1928962
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:TRANSFER CASE (4-WHEEL DRIVE) filed September 19, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1928962 (ODI reference 11545390) concerns a 2018 JEEP WRANGLER and was filed on September 19, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 19, 2023. The vehicle had 70,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Texas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:transfer case (4-wheel drive), one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same JEEP WRANGLER cohort independently describe similar power train:transfer case (4-wheel drive) failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2018 JEEP WRANGLER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2018 Jeep Wrangler. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V116000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated while driving approximately 30 MPH, there was an abnormal banging sound coming from underneath the floorboard. The contact stated that the vehicle stalled, and smoke was coming from underneath the vehicle. The contact stated he was not aware of any warning lights being illuminated. The vehicle was towed to a dealer. The dealer diagnosed and determined that the transmission case was cracked open and severely damaged, and the transmission needed to be replaced. The vehicle had not been repaired. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The failure mileage was approximately 70,000. VIN tool confirms parts not yet available.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1928962 |
| ODI Number | 11545390 |
| Date Filed | September 19, 2023 |
| Failure Date | May 19, 2023 |
| VIN | 1C4HJXDG2JW |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.